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Advertising by definition is “the act or process of calling the attention of the public to a product to promote sales.”
While the standard definition is true, it is not complete. In my field it has been proven to be fairly easy to get the phones to ring. There are countless resources with excellent advice and time tested formulas to do just that. Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Claude Hopkins and Kamron Karrington to name a few, will get you pointed in the right direction.
The purpose of this article has nothing to do with the listed definition of advertising. This article addresses the other, not so sexy side of advertising that will ensure that you keep your phones ringing so that you can keep the customers you have, impress your new customers while simultaneously growing your customer base to a point where you can make some serious loot!
Let’s start with a typical scenario that is played out across the country every day. We will call this operator “Joe”. Joe like most of us believes that he is God’s gift to pizza. He has the golden touch, he is THE MAN. He makes a great pizza, and he is a well versed in all aspects of marketing. Joe recently took over a run down store and was convinced that he had what it took to turn this armpit of a store into “the next big thing”. Joe just placed his first monster ad. You know the ad he put out, it was worded properly, utilizing all the tools of salesmanship with an offer that was good to be true. And the definition of advertising occurred. It made the phones ring. Is this the end of the story? Let’s look a little further…..
Joe could not believe the results from his ad. He could see it now. The competition had to be running for the hills. They had never seen marketing like this, he was untouchable!
Hold it! Let’s Back up the truck. Ok, so the phones rang. Dollars went into his wallet. The advertising did its job. All is well… or is it? Let me explain.
The true advertising lies in the execution. What did his execution advertise to his customers? Did Joe live up to the bold promises that his ad or mailer placed? Did his sales reps build good will with their smiles and helpful nature? Did he have the trained staff on hand to process his customer’s orders quickly and accurately? Did his product do what he said it was going to do and more?
If the answer is NO, it is probable that Joe just spent a bundle to advertise to potential customers that he was incompetent! Sound harsh?
Let’s stop talking about Joe and insert our names into this scenario. If you did not deliver on your promises you actually spend money making your competition look good! Contrast works both ways. The customer will always compare you with the last company in your field they did business with or with the standard of expectation that you have set with them either through your advertising or your past performance. Either you were better than they were or not. Simple. If you were not…. They will not be back anytime soon. Why should they? Ouch! Sure you might be able to wait until the next guy drops the ball, after you have spent countless dollars trying to bring them back.
Here is the very harsh reality. The next piece of marketing your customers gets from you will immediately bring them back to their last experience with you. Either they will remember the prompt friendly service, the incredible quality of your product and the great price they paid or the will remember the opposite. Will they remember being put on hold? Getting a soggy pizza? Waiting for an hour? Being disappointed? If their experience was the latter, no matter how compelling your ad is, they will not order from you. All of your advertising at this point is working on bringing in new customers. This gets very expensive and is true sign of a dying company. It takes a pile of money to land a new customer while we all know that the repeat business is where the true profits start rolling in.
I urge this. Spend 80% of your time constantly perfecting and refining your operations and 20% planning and executing your marketing. A well run business that is clean, has professional employees that are well trained and churns out a great product is the best form of advertising there is. BE AWARE OF WHAT YOUR OPERATIONS ADVERTISE, your advertisements should be an extension of your operations. I have seen too many times where there is a marketing department that is very very sharp and they have their marketing plans down to the letter only to have operations unable to deliver on marketing’s promises.
Let me illustrate this point with a real world example. I worked for a very astute business man who was a franchisee for one of the big three. He had experienced enormous success in the past and he had very good time tested marketing plan mapped out months in advance. A favorite saying of his was “Sales are a cure all”. And it sure seemed that way. When sales were up every one had an extra hop in their step, their egos were being puffed up and the bank statements looked a little nicer. … Once again….Fools gold.
This man I referred to had purchased the company and doused it with his “Gold Medal Marketing Plan”. Direct mailers, database mailer, TV, Radio, Meet the Manager Specials and Two Advo’s a month. His ads were fresh and new and the crews were motivated and excited about change. Unfortunately when things are going good, sometimes you let things slip. Sometimes it takes awhile for things to catch up to you. Now, did we give poor service every day? No…. We gave decent service 85% of the time. Did decent service support our ads or our customers expectations? Heck no!
A year later things were glum, the company was in financial distress and everyone was wondering what was happening. Our aggressive marketing was still in place but we found ourselves going from double digit increases to sales decreases. The economy was fine. The competition was not doing anything new or special. Why were sales down? Our marketing had started working against us.
The diagnosis-We were not prepared and we were not providing operational excellence day in and day out. We did not have strong enough management in place at a store level. Our stores at times had not had the proper staff on hand and due to inexperienced management, product quality could be inconsistent.
THIS DID NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. I am not suggesting that if you have a bad night that it is all over. I am illustrating that over the course of time our marketing slowly worked against us to the point where our marketing became impotent. When advertising and operations are in sink your customer base will grow like a snowball going downhill picking up steam growing bigger and bigger and BIGGER.
That astute businessman ended up selling the company on a down note. Sure, there were other dynamics to consider, but looking for the instant gratification without assessing the long term ramifications put the company into a ditch that took years to pull out of. . Now, I can hear some of you saying, “That astute business man did not know what he was doing.” From an outsiders perspective, that is easy to say. That astute business man came from a franchise where his stores were averaging easily over 20k a week with 2 minute load Times and 12 minute out the door times. Day in and day out. He was a great operator. In hind site his mistake was not realizing that he did not have the same talent level as he was accustomed to. This is a key issue when developing your marketing plan. Do I have the staff or talent to pull this off? That is one aspect of production capability. The other question of production capability is do I have the equipment to pull this off? Phone lines, ovens, delivery bags, etc.
“What now?” you may be saying. “Should I just not market?”My advice would be to start by assessing what your current operations is telling your customers. Take that information and develop an action plan to change that message if need be to bring your advertisings promises in line with what your operations can and will provide. Next asses what your current production capability is. From that point gradually increase your marketing levels so that marketing is a step behind what your operations can handle. Always build from a position of strength. For example, if you need 5 phone lines add a sixth. If you need 14 drivers get 16. I realize this can take enormous self discipline.
I promise you that if you take the necessary steps to ensure that your marketing and operations are in sync you will reap the long term benefits of having your marketing working for you. Leave the alternative to your competition.